Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  For the first time since that Sunday evening, he was feeling himself again. Till to-day all his life-force had been absorbed in the work of physical repair, just doing the mending, but to-day it was flowing back into its accustomed channels. His eyelid had had a couple of stitches put in it, but it had done finely, and the stitches had been taken out that morning. His hand had given the most trouble: there had been a lot of suppuration, but now it had healed from the bottom of the wound upwards and the new skin was healthy. There had been some very bad days, and what made them worse was that his drink had been cut off altogether, and the craving for it had been harder to bear than all the pain. But the doctor from St. Columb’s, the first to cross the threshold of the farm for the last ten years, had told him pretty roundly that he might as well take a pint of weed-killer as get to his whisky again: the weed-killer would do for him a bit quicker, but the other was just as sure. So, for all these days, he had had to bear the fever and the weakness and the fierce stabbings of his hand without other alleviation than ointments and dressings.

  Another kind of fortitude not less stubborn was required to face the profound physical humiliation that Dennis had heaped upon him, and that which he had suffered at the hands of some infinitely more potent agency, though, God knew, Dennis had been potent enough! What that was, or how it had all happened, his appalling theology, based on the existence of a jealous God swift to avenge Himself on sinners, was unable to determine. Had he offended by not preventing any rescue of the poultry during church-time on that Sunday morning? It looked as if that might be so, for the disaster to his sheep had followed close on its heels. That surely had driven him mad, and he had cursed God and blasphemed against His Name. But swift again on the heels of his blasphemy had followed his repentance, and God had surely sent a sign to show He accepted that by causing the storm to cease. Then to demonstrate that his repentance was real, he had gone upstairs to flog Dennis for not keeping holy the Sabbath morning and payoff other scores against him, with untoward results. There was no unravelling it at all: Mollie, who had not said a prayer nor been to church these twenty years, was jingling with coin from the hens. Was it possible to wonder, silently so that no one should hear, whether she wasn’t the wiser of them? Often she had mocked at him for his churchgoings and his Sunday abstinences, telling him that God must be a mighty flat if He didn’t see through him, and that his observances were a mere bit of hypocrisy, a spell for- Sundays in which he did not really believe. All these reflections, running round and round in his head, made a pleasant accompaniment indeed to the long sleepless nights, and puzzle as he might he could not get things straight.

  Then why had he not been more careful how he had gripped Dennis’s neck, instead of letting him wriggle his head round and get his teeth into him? He’d have taught him a lesson that would have marked him for a lifetime if he had gripped him more securely, and held him down till he had flogged him into utter surrender of body and spirit, though it: had taken all night to do it. He’d have broken him down, so that a glance at the whip by the kitchen door would have made him go white. Not a day or an hour would have passed, when the boy was fit to move again, in which he would not have rubbed in his abject humiliation. He would have gelded him of all courage and spirit. He would have made a shambling shame-faced coward of him, he would have told all St. Columb’s what he’d one to him; he’d have taken him down to the pier and cuffed and kicked him before the fisher-boys and women, so that all should see how John Pentreath brought up his family in the fear of the Lord...But things had turned out otherwise, and when two days before he had come down for the first time for midday dinner, it was he who had dreaded Dennis’s entrance. If Dennis had taken the dog-whip off its nail, and said, U Now, sit you there, Grandfather, and I’ll give you a bit more of what I owe you,” John knew that he’d no more fight left in him, and would just have cowered in his chair. But Dennis hadn’t even given him a glance, and since then he had spoken only half-a-dozen words to him, just ordinary, about the farm, asking him whether he wanted the cows turned into the far pasture, or put in the field where the sheep had been. But John had been aware, in the very marrow of his bones, how the boy despised him, and if he did not rub in his contempt with insults and jeerings, it was merely because he did not consider him worth it.

  And all the women in the house knew what had happened, and had the same contemptuous commiseration for him...There had been a fight to-day between two fisher-fellows in St. Columb’s, and Nell had brought news of it. “And then Jim Carlyon gave the other fellow a fine clout and split his eyelid for him, much the same as Mr. Pentreath’s,” she had said. And Mollie had been equally explicit. ee Glad to see you down again, John, after all your misfortunes. Well, we’ve all got to learn not to loose hand or tongue against them that’s stronger nor us. There’s a couple of eggs for you: better that than meat just yet.”

  That grim saying gave him something to ponder. Did Mollie allude to Dennis only, or to his own blasphemies that Sunday night?

  All these days when he had been in bed, Nancy had looked after him entirely. She knew a bit about nursing, she was far more active and quick-handed than Mollie, who bungled with the bottles, and once poured out a dose of liniment into his medicine glass, and would have given it him to take, had not Nancy intervened. It was much better that one woman should be in charge, and it was at Mollie’s suggestion, made to Nancy and sanctioned by the doctor, that the two had changed rooms so that Nancy could be near him at night, with an open door between them, and often she had come in, just in her nightgown, to give him a sedative draught, if the pain was bad, with the sexless indifference of a nurse, whose only thought is for the patient, be he man or woman. But as he regained his strength, there was more in it than that for him: pretty feet she had with slim ankles, and by the light of the candle she carried he could conjecture the outline of her breasts and the full haunches of her, and he would call her without reason, in order to have a look at her. But in the morning when she came to see to him and bring his breakfast, and do the dressings, God, how tactless she was in her encouragements, letting her pride in Dennis involuntarily betray itself.

  “Why, your thumb’s healing finely,” she said, “and at last there’s the good skin coming over it as soft as a child’s! Lor’, what a bite the lad gave you: lucky he always keeps his teeth clean, else he’d have poisoned you. And now for your poor cheek: that’s doing well, too. My word, he let out at you then! Something cruel, wasn’t it, with that nasty dog-whip, and him pinned down under you! But such arms the boy’s got, they’re more like the limbs of a young horse. I was surprised when he tapped at my door, for all naked he’d carried you along to your room, just as if you was a baby, six feet high, slung over his shoulder. Now you hold your head still, Mr. Pentreath, while I attend to your poor eye, and don’t you move if I hurt you. I’ll go as gentle as a woman can. You men don’t know what it is to bear a bit of pain without wincing, though I’m sure Dennis was steady enough with a great weal across his back, and his throat, why, it’s swollen still where you tried to strangle him. He won’t let you off so easy next time you think to go for him. There! Now I’ll run and fetch you a bit of toast for your breakfast and a cup of tea.”

  But wonderful kind and attentive, he allowed, Nancy had been. She had been in and out of his room all day, bringing him his food or his bedpan, and cleaning and dressing his wounds, according to orders, deft and cheerful and nimble with her fingers. She brought him any bits of news there might be, telling him how the hay was getting on, trimming her new hat as she sat by his bed, or reading to him aloud out of her trashy book. She seemed to like to be with him, to wash and tidy him, to brush his hair for him. The woman, so he began to figure it to himself, enjoyed ministering to him. All this kindled his sex-feeling towards her, and most of all those visits to him at night. But now, worse 1uck, there would be no more of them, for Nancy was moving back to her room, and Mollie would be sleeping again next door. Dr. Symes had been this morning, and congratulated
Nancy on her success with the patient, but there was now no longer any need for her to be within call at night. Nor would he pay him any more visits, and by way of rubbing the smart in, told him that a hard-drinking fellow like him positively had no right to have recovered so quickly.

  “And if you take my advice, Pentreath,” he said, “you’ll cut down your drink, say, to a quarter of your usual dose. I’d tell you to stop it altogether, if I thought there was the slightest chance of your doing so. But if you don’t cut it down, you’ll have an attack of delirium tremens that’ll carry you off without your having the trouble of getting bashed about first. I advise you to respect your constitution, because it’s a most respectable one.”

  “Aye, that’s the way of my family,” said John.

  “And that Dennis of yours inherits it. He’s the strongest and finest boy in these parts, so you’d better respect him as well. I’ve given him a good talking to, I may tell you, and told him he was a bloody young ruffian, and he’ll be quiet and civil with you, and do his work.”

  All this John thought over as he smoked his pipe in the empty kitchen. Then Mollie came in, after sending off her crate of eggs, and Nancy began busying herself with boiling the fowl that Mollie had granted out of her superabundance, for supper. There was more to think over yet, the clatter disturbed him, and he strolled out into the garden as the sun began to redden in the west, conscious, after these days of bed and low vitality, of the lure of the matured spring, even more keenly than when on that Sunday afternoon in February it had danced and dangled between his eyes and his Bible-reading. But to-day was not Sunday, so he could indulge any sort of fancy without fear of offence to the Inexplicable Ones. And there was a thrill, a keen edge to his perceptions, the like of which he had not known for years, and he sat there in acute, not stupefied, content. Every sense seemed bright and shining, like polished channels through which the stream of his consciousness passed: it was with delight that his nostrils drank in the scents of the garden, stewing in the warm air, after those stale smells of ointment and lotions, and with delight that his eyes, after the days of staring at the discoloured walls of his bedroom, looked across the fields to the quivering azure of the bay. His food at dinner had not been mere material to be hungrily bolted, but a sweet savour with the conscious sense of nourishment to follow. There had been Nancy, too, at dinner to be looked at greedily in swift glances. She had always been an attractive wench, but doubly so she was now, when he had seen her night after night coming into his room with just her shift to cover her. He knew now how seductive she was when she smiled at him with eyes suffused with sleep, and the fibre of his blood stiffened at the thought of seeing her thus again, though she would no longer come to him of a night ...

  Perception and desire alike, after these days of apathy, were beginning to flow again like a stream restored by rains, and among desires came that of drink. If food tasted so good to-day, what unimaginable nectar would be his first glass of whisky! But he must go carefully, after what that outspoken doctor had told him, and certainly he must drop that habit of sitting soaking every night. A glass or two after supper could not hurt anybody, and perhaps his abstinence had something to do with these quickened perceptions and sense of heightened enjoyment. Just once a week or so, he might let himself go, and have a proper drink again; and if you came to look at it, these twenty years and more of getting at least half tipsy every night hadn’t hurt him yet, for the doctor had been amazed at the speed and completeness with which his hurts had healed. Bitten down to the bone he had been, and there was little power in his thumb, for some of the sinews had been severed, and the joint was very stiff still. But, power would come back in time, he was assured, and externally now there was only visible the slightly curved scar of pink new skin on each side of his thumb where that damned boy’s teeth had bitten.

  Among all these quickened perceptions there was none more acute than his hatred for Dennis and the surety that he would get even with him some day. There was no flogging that he could give him, even if he was capable of administering it (and he’d had the best chance that man ever had) which could make up for all he had received at his hands, but the account had got to be squared with a bit of balance in his favour too. There surged into his mind again the memory of that distinct and definite desire, when Dennis’s teeth were bulldogged into his hand, to strangle him. He had been drunk then, he had been in the clutch of that hellish pain that shot up his arm like a redhot iron, but now when sober and sitting browsing in the sun, he could visualise that murderous fog that had turned everything scarlet.

  The click of the garden gate sounded, and there was the boy himself coming back from his work. He wore a sleeveless shirt, open at the neck, his hair gleamed gold in the sun, his bare arms swung loosely as he walked. His neck, round and muscular, rose like a pillar from his low square shoulders, and there was still the mark of a bruise on the left side of it. He was whistling, and he passed close to his grandfather, just nodding to him, without a word and without ceasing his shrill tune, and went through the gate into the farmyard.

  So that was what the boy thought of him, was it, going by as if he were an old mangy dog, crawled out to warm himself in the sun. He would think different some day, when he found himself looking down the barrels of John Pentreath’s gun. Dennis mustn’t be asleep then, he must see what was coming, and at whose hands he faced death: just to kill him while he slept would rob revenge of half its honey. And then perhaps his ruddy brown face would go white beneath its tan, his eyes would be raised in hopeless appeal, and he’d stop his whistling. But it must all be carefully planned, and nothing could be done for a long while yet: he must wait till Dennis’s mauling of him had been forgotten, or no one would believe it to be an accident.

  To-night for the first time he sat up for supper: rare and tender was the chicken, and Nancy had cooked it to a turn. She was in the best of spirits, for she had received a most welcome letter from Harry Giles. He had been away up in London for the last fortnight, but now he wrote saying that he would be back at St. Columb’s on Friday, so that if by chance she had another sleepy fit that night, she would be very welcome if she cared to come and take a nap at the corner house in Kenrith Lane. Arrangements about the studio door as usual...So like him and his fun! It had gone to her heart to bum his note, but the fire was the best place for it. You couldn’t tell who mightn’t be prying and watching in this house, which seemed to be all eyes and ears. So into the fire it went as she served up the chicken in high good-humour.

  “You’ll be cutting up your meat for yourself to-morrow, Mr. Pentreath,” she said. “I believe you could do it to-night, but you like to be waited on. I saw Parson down to St. Columb’s this afternoon, who asked after you, and I told him as like as not you’d be in your place in church again come Sunday. You’re a wonder you are for healing after such a chaw-up; I’m sure I never thought we’d see you about again for a long while yet. There’s a nice piece of wing I’ve cut up for you, and there’ll be another bit cold to-morrow. And won’t you have a glass of your usual to-night? You’ll ‘most have forgotten the taste of it.”

  “Aye, that I will,” he said. “Fetch me the bottle from the cupboard, there’s a good girl.”

  “Yes, that’ll do you good,” said Mollie.

  “Nectar indeed it was, and he sipped it, smacking his lips for the fuller appreciation of it. That’s what I wanted,” he said. “Seems to me you always know what I want, Nancy. You’ve done a lot for me, early and late, since I was last down for supper. I’ll take just a drain more, and then you can put the bottle back in the cupboard, for that’s my ration for to-night.”

  Supper over, he had his pipe, and his eyes kept following Nancy as she helped in clearing the table. She took off the cloth, holding the edge with arms outstretched, then brought them together as she folded it, just as if she were casting them round something that lay against her breast. Then she got her book, but to-night she had little diligence; it was as if her thoughts made a more attra
ctive picture, and her eyes wandered from the page, and catching his, she would smile at him and bend to her reading again. Nothing of this was lost on Mollie, and what she saw seemed to please her. All was going just as she wished: John was coming alive again, and, though he could spare an ugly look at Dennis, it was on Nancy that his thoughts were fixed, and well Mollie could read them. He was getting afire for her, just as Mollie would have him do: it had been a rare thought of hers that Nancy should take the room next him while he was ill, and attend to him night and day, a rare thought indeed, and well it had worked: it might be useful, too, to have been tenant of Nancy’s room during these days, for she could find her way about it in the dark, if need be. But now Nancy’s nursing was done, and one night before long she would be getting sleepy again after supper, and nip off, after she’d locked her door and put the key above the lintel, to see her fancy-man down to St. Columb’s. That was the night for which Mollie was waiting: a long wait it had been, and a fair puzzle it had been to work her plan out, but she had been patient and contriving, and it was ready now. And John would be ready too, she surmised, when she had chatted with him a bit after Nancy had felt herself a sleepy-head, some night soon. The speechless clock whirred, indicating nine, and John went to the cupboard and took a stiff dram for a nightcap.

  “I’ll be off to bed,” he said.